Volume Thirteen - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - even more aspects - Slavery - echoes of the past . . . .

Within the South Wales Iron industry, slave trade profits are allegedly attributed to the development of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks and to the purchase of the Plymouth works of Merthyr via Anthony Bacon (1717-1786).

Bacon undertook government contracts for the supply of 'seasoned and able Negroes' and supplies to the Caribbean' during the period 1760 to 1766. Bacon was the owner, or partial owner, of five slavers and these vessels undertook at least six Atlantic slave trade voyages ; 'the blood of thousands of innocents,' was, therefore, invested in the Cyfarthfa ironworks.

Profits from slavery were often gifted to institutions including the National Gallery, the Royal Academy, the Tate, the Victoria and Albert and the British Museums. The term philanthropist derives from the Greek for 'loving people' and seeks a desire to promote the welfare of all humankind - some of these philanthropists seemed to have forgotten about the enslaved!

	A Napoleonic Carronade of 1802. Probably cast at the Cyfarthfa Iron Works at Merthyr. Also, popular on ships involved in the slave trade! [048] A carronade was a short, heavy-barreled naval gun developed by the British Carron Company in the late 18th century. Renowned as 'The Smasher' for its short-range destructive power, it fired relatively heavy shot and was used successfully by the Royal Navy during the French and Napoleonic Wars.
	The quayside named 'Gwlad Quay' or 'Gwlat' (which became known in the period as 'Cannon Wharf'), situated off Quay Street, in Cardiff, was probably built by Anthony Bacon and was used to export cannon for the American war and apparently to our enemy as well!